Asia Archives - Page 2039 of 2042

13Jul

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Pakistan & Kashmir, USA

PETRAEUS PRAISES PAKISTAN

NOVANEWS ISLAMABAD — Gen. David Petraeus lauded Pakistan’s efforts at battling Islamist militants during his first visit here since taking over as top NATO commander in neighboring Afghanistan this month. But he avoided public mention of the complicated tug of war between the countries over the presence in Pakistan’s border regions of militants launching attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan is embroiled in military operations against Pakistani Taliban fighters in its volatile northwest. One of Petraeus’ main challenges as NATO commander will be to try to persuade its leaders to also turn their sights toward Afghan Taliban based in their country’s semiautonomous tribal areas. Pakistan has been wracked by deadly attacks in the past two weeks that have killed nearly 150 people...

13Jul

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Afghanistan

STUDY FINDS TOXIC METALS IN DUST IN AFGHANISTAN

By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Jul 13, 2010 Here’s another thing to worry about when you deploy: toxic dust. A new Navy study suggests that dust from Afghanistan contains metals that may cause respiratory problems and brain damage. “Afghanistan sand produces neurotoxicity … with potential adverse health effects to our soldiers,” according to a briefing of the study presented at a medical conference in June in Portland, Ore. The Navy conducted the study in response to anecdotal concerns that the dust and dust storms common in the Middle East may be harmful. The dust samples were taken from Forward Operating Base Salerno near Khost, which was selected because of its relative isolation with no nearby industry that could skew results. A close analysis of the Afghan dust fo...

13Jul

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Pakistan & Kashmir

PAKISTAN: SELF-DEFEATING ATTITUDE

NOVANEWS By Usman Khalid Among many stories that come out of Afghanistan I read one which is remarkably similar to the experience of the people of Swat and Waziristan . In the village of Hiratian in Afghanistan ‘s Helmand province, locals found the body of eight-year-old Dilawar hanging from a tree of a small fruit farm. The Taliban fighters had accused the boy of spying for the American forces; they kidnapped him, strung him up and left his body to sway in the wind for hours for all to see. The murder was horrifying, yet few villagers come to the defence of anyone charged with spying for the hated Americans. But slowly, the details of the story emerged. The Taliban in the area had been collecting donations — money, food or weapons. They demanded money or a weapon from Mullah Qudoos, the ...

12Jul

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Lebanon

REMEMBERING FADLALLAH

NOVANEWS Lebanon's Grand AyatollahMohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a leading Shiite figure, has died at the age of 75 yesterday. The religious leader, with a huge following, was remembered by bloggers from across the region. Lebanon declared three days of mourning in respect. Lebanese Dr As'ad AbuKhalil from The Angry Arab News Service shares some information he got first-hand from Fadulallah: I am still in Doha and don't have time to write an essay about Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. But much of the writings (not only in English) is missing many elements about his background and thought. In his early years in Najaf, where his father `Abdur-Ra'uf Fadlallah was a teacher, he was very much disturbed, as he once told me, by the strength of the communists in that country. The conflict with the commun...

10Jul

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Pakistan & Kashmir

A LAST NOTE FROM AZAD

NOVANEWS This is a rejoinder the slain CPI (Maoist) spokesperson had penned in response to B.G. Verghese’s article in Outlook Chemkuri Azad Rajkumar Reading B.G. Verghese’s article Daylight at the Thousand-Star Hotel in Outlook (May 3), one is stunned by the abysmal poverty of thought and colonial mindset of this renowned intellectual. How is it that the illiterate, seemingly uncivilised, backward, half-naked adivasi thinks, analyses and acts a lot better than an established, well-read, highly qualified intellectual like Verghese? The history of freedom in our country presents innumerable such contrasts: of the highly educated white man, with his vast, in-depth knowledge of the world and the natural and social sciences, glorifying the British raj as a regime with a civili...

10Jul

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Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN CORRUPTION: BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SECRETED OUT OF KABUL

NOVANEWS Billions of dollars are being secreted out of Kabul to help well-connected Afghans buy luxury villas in Dubai. Amid concerns that the money could be the result of corruption, American politicians have temporarily cut off aid to the Afghan government. Brigadier General Mohammed Asif Jabarkhel sits with folded arms in his office, just a few steps away from the security checkpoint at Kabul International Airport. “Of course I know what’s going on here,” the 59-year-old head of the airport’s customs police grumbles from beneath his thick moustache as a fan whirs in the background. “But, in this country, who’s allowed to speak the truth?” Jabarkhel is referring to the huge amounts of money regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases. According to some est...

10Jul

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Iran

IRAN: FACING DEATH BY STONING

An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity of death by stoning, in which women are buried up to their necks in front of a crowd of volunteers and killed in a hail of rocks. Photograph: Thierry Roge/Reuters Twelve Iranian women and three men are on death row awaiting execution by stoning despite an apparent last-minute reprieve for a mother of two who had been facing the horrific sentence after being convicted of adultery. Human rights groups and activists welcomed a wave of international publicity and protests over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, who was awaiting execution in the western Iranian town of Tabriz after what her lawyer called an unjust trial and a sham conviction. The Iranian embassy in London said in a statement that "according to informat...

8Jul

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India

INDIA: DOMINANCE OF HINDU TALIBAN

Brig. Asif Haroon Raja NOVANEWS July 8, 2010 by Gordon Duff INDIA: Dominance of Hindu Taliban By Brig Asif Haroon Raja for Veterans Today and Opinion Maker A famous Indian proverb about its mean mentality, “ooper say raam raam baghal main churri,” meaning outwardly very friendly but covertly the knife is always ready to stab, holds very true even today. In the garb of friendship, peace and good relations, India spares no opportunity to strike when she has to. Hindu terrorist wielding his sword India is the architect of terrorism and has always used terrorism as an instrument to browbeat its neighbors. Sri Lanka has suffered for 28 long years through the Indian proxy Tamil Tigers. Nepal was not spared her share of India’s love through terrorism. Pakistan is her most fancied friend ...

6May

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Afghanistan

IS THE TALIBAN MUSLIM STOOGES?

NOVANEWS Gordon Duff: Times Square “Fizzler,” Israel’s “Crotch Bomber Redux by Gordon Duff GOP and FOX NEWS Campaign Continues to Stamp Israeli Brand On Time Square Bomber More Airport Magic…. By Gordon Duff | STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Watching the news on the arrest of the Time Square bomber, or as we will call him, “the Time Square Fizzler,” and the flood of political attacks on the president and news reports condemning Pakistan and Islam make it all clear as a bell. The ‘highly trained’ terrorist, supposedly schooled in explosives and ’secret agent stuff’ is another patsy. Think “Mumbai” and the recent trial. All our suspect could say, over and over, knowing he is doomed is that he was ’set up.’ With the Pakistan Taliban the biggest security risk for the only Islamic nuclear ...

26Mar

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Saudi Arabia

BARBARIC SAUDIS

NOVANEWS I came back yesterday from a two-day trip to Saudi Arabia. I didn’t blog about it beforehand because I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the chances of my getting a visa, which arrived on the morning of the day I left. Now I’m back and I’m suffering from a type of cognitive dissonance — something more like cultural dissonance. I’m having so much difficulty making sense of it that I’ve found myself anxious about trying to describe the two days to my family. Blogging about it is yet more difficult. First, there are so many reasons I distrust my own impressions: I was there for two days. I hung out with Saudis studying the Internet and with Netty foreigners. I saw only the inside of the Marriott, King Saud University, and a coffee shop. I was one of two Americans (as far as I ...